Untrue. The most common usage is as an adjective/verb that has nothing to do with disabled people. "Switching from C to Java really gimped our performance." "Our marketing in Mexico is gimped because we didn't hire a native Spanish speaker."
Also this is pretty rich coming from GNOME, considering that's used as an insulting name for little person.
I'm a native English speaker in the US and have never heard or read "gimp" used as an adjective this way. Never.
I have heard it used as a slur against people with disabilities many times, in real life, movies, and books.
Even the usage you're claiming is the most common sounds like it's a synonym for "cripple".
The entire etymology for the word "gimp" supports that it was conceived originally as a slur and continues to be used that way.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/gimp
Either way, why would anyone want to download something with that name? It's embarrassing to recommend it to people.
It's used that way in Australia, the only time in my life I've heard gimp used in a derogatory way was in pulp fiction.
But this illustrates a big problem with all these PC crusades lately, they're trying to apply US (at least parts of the US) cultural norms to international projects, often at the expense of alienating most of the world.
It's not a "crusade" in any sense. It's one issue on a GitLab that someone decided to link over here (not one of the people who made the issue, I think). It is about "political correctness" only in that it's genuinely hard to get some people to even consider using this free software because, and ONLY because, of its name.
I think you should rethink your idea of a crusade if you think this is what that word means.
> It is about "political correctness" only in that it's genuinely hard to get some people to even consider using this free software because, and ONLY because, of its name.
People that vain will find something else to dislike about it.
Dictionaries aren't perfect, but they're more widely agreed-on and useful than your anecdata.
> they're trying to apply US (at least parts of the US) cultural norms to international projects
Out of 379M native English speakers[1], 234M[2] live in the US. That's about 61%. If our English-language norms are widespread, they're also likely used by a majority of native English speakers.
(That's also not including Canada, which shares many of our language norms.)
> alienating most of the world
How does changing the name of Gimp "alienate" anyone? Whose feelings would be hurt and why? Who would stop using the product out of rage?
1. https://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/size
2. https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/...
> Out of 379M native English speakers[1], 234M[2] live in the US. That's about 61%. If our English-language norms are widespread, they're also likely used by a majority of native English speakers.
The replies here indicate that it's not universally used in it's derogatory meaning within the US either. Not that it matters, I was talking about applying the cultural norms to the rest of the world, the culture being the PC professional standards of white collar workers in large cities. The more that get's forced into OSS, of which this is just one example of a trend, and most of the world and anyone that want's more inclusivity should be fighting against this sort of rubbish.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/gimp
"GIMP" is merely an unfortunate consequence of the editor being named "GNU Image Manipulation Editor". GIMP is the obvious acronym.